What is Bluetooth aptX and how does it improve sound quality?

Bluetooth is super popular nowadays and can be seen in almost every device and gadget that we use nowadays. Any device that is wireless uses the Bluetooth technology to connect the wireless device to your computer or phone. This technology was seen as something that was “unachievable” in the old times but now this technology is so common among us nowadays. But even so, we are not fully familiar with the wireless technologies that are available nowadays. One of these technologies is called aptX, it is a technology that one must look out for. This technology has been around for many years and we are seeing more and more of aptX nowadays, we can see them on much more products than we used to. To know what aptX is we must first get a clearer knowledge of what Bluetooth is.

Bluetooth

In 1989 the development of short-link radio technology began which was then named as “Bluetooth”. This technology was mainly invented for one reason and the reason was to create some sort of connection or bridge between two devices and that too wirelessly. Even though we all use Bluetooth mainly for listening to music nowadays but it was not the reason why it was made for, but then we do have the technology in our hand and we can take advantage of it however we want to. As we know that it was developed for short-link radio technology and so Bluetooth is actually a technology that allows two devices to share or transfer data in a short-range wirelessly, it definitely has its bandwidth limitations. Bluetooth is a very low power consumption technology and it uses “SBC” and because of that, it is not very suitable for high rate audio files. Bluetooth actually compresses the audio, which is because it was actually designed to use as little power as it possibly can.

AptX

AptX is very much like any other compression just like Mp3 it also compresses the files but the difference is that the compression that is done by aptX is very different from that of Mp3. While Mp3 uses something that is known as the aforementioned psychoacoustic, aptX uses the Adaptive differential pulse code modulation to take out data. To put it in simpler words we can say that the Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation uses fewer bits per sample and as a result, the files are much smaller. But for the aptX technology to work properly and for you to take full advantage of it, you must ensure that aptX is present on both the products that you are using. Sadly anything that comes from Apple doesn’t really support aptX technology as of now so if you are someone who owns all the Apple devices then sadly you won’t be able to take advantage of the aptX technology.

This compression is great but the audio that is not compressed at all is on another level. It just cannot be compared to the compressed audio. That can be done if your phone and the headphones that you are using both have the ability to decode Mp3 then you can stream it without even re-encoding the signal meaning without using “SBC” or “aptX”.

Does aptX provide better sound quality?

Well to answer that question we cannot say that aptX is necessarily better but we can say that the sound quality that aptX offers is certainly better. But the problem that we face is that both the devices meaning your headphones and your mobile have to support the aptX technology and even if both of the devices have the aptX technology supported by them then we don’t know if the aptX is even turned on. The reason for that would be because there is no indication that aptX is turned on. That is something that needs to be worked upon. Lastly, we also found that aptX is better, upon the comparison between an aptX headset, the sound quality was just better while the Bose 700 struggled because it doesn’t support aptX.